Or telecommuting. I freelance remotely and make upwards of $100 an hour. It seems like a lot until you remember:
-- No job-related health insurance.
-- As a contractor, I pay almost twice as much employment taxes as full-time employees in the US.
-- Business is sometimes sporadic
-- your next paycheck is not guaranteed.
However, all that is perfectly acceptable to me since in the end, I'm my own boss. There are only a few kinds of job offers I'd consider at this point since I'm very happy with being a freelancer. But don't take the $100 figure at face value -- add in taxes, business cycle, time needed for marketing and accounting, etc, and it's not as much as it seems.
> As a contractor, I pay almost twice as much employment taxes as full-time employees in the US.
As a small business owner in the UK I have free healthcare and pay slightly less tax than I would as an employee. I pay minimal NI contributions (about 40 GBP per month, I think), 20% corporate tax on earnings (after subtracting expenses and a token 7.5k salary) and zero tax on up to 35k of dividends per year.
Yeah, yeah, rub it in. In all seriousness, the taxation of contractors is a big problem here in the US. And you'll love this: it's only the first 100,000 USD of contractor income that is taxed at double the rate of regular employees The doctor's lobby is powerful here and wanted to ensure that the majority of their income is not taxed as such a high rate since many (most?) physicians outside of hospitals here are technically independent contractors.
